The Internet has had a dramatic affect on everything from entertainment to shopping. And it has almost indisputably caused a revolution in the news media, and the way your average person consumes information. In an interview Tuesday, web expert Amy Eisman spoke with us about the effects of the Internet not on the consumer of information, but on the creator, particularly in terms of maximizing the potential of online writing.
Eisman is a professor of communications at American University in Washington, D.C. Her career has led her from work at USA Today to AOL. In addition to her teaching, she currently does training on writing for the Web all over the world, and is a well-known expert on the subject. We had a chance to speak with her about her work and she provided us with a brief presentation on what she considers most important to know about Web writing today.
She began with a list of reader expectations in online news. As readers, she said, we expect certain features from online media, such as visual extensions into pictures and video, user-generated content, frequent updates, social networking, niche-fulfilling sites, and easy usability and navigation, to name just a few. In addition, she identified a few trends in online media. For example, new concepts like mash-ups such as Footnote (http://www.footnote.com), which combines data from the national archives with digital photographs of the Vietnam War Memorial to create a searchable, viewable virtual wall, complete with biographies and extra information of the fallen soldiers. In addition, she mentioned trends like new formats for storytelling, such as through video and multimedia, as well as citizen journals, like OhmyNews International (http://english.ohmynews.com), described as an online newspaper with the motto “every citizen is a reporter.”
After that introduction, Eisman identified what she believed was key to online writing – clarity. In headlines, she said, “clarity trumps creativity.” In navigation, she said, “Pages need to look readable.” Regarding writing formatting and styling, she explains, “When you look at a website, you don’t want to think about where to go on it.” And in every example she provided, clarity and ease of use were crucial.
Eisman explained that in Web writing, as in all writing, one has a tendency to overwrite, getting too wordy and taking too much of the readers’ time to get to the point of a story. “It’s not dumbing down information,” she warned, however, it’s just that “anybody can write long.” It’s difficult to write simply, she said, because there’s always a feeling that it is necessary to explain everything, and to lead up too much to a point. Eisman also mentioned that research has proven “people actually look more deeply into content online” than they do in print media. What this means, she emphasized, is that again “pages need to look readable,” and that you should put in “things you can’t get on television or in print newspapers.” Online media is a unique source of information, she explained, and because of that it should provide unique ways of presenting that information.
At the end of our interview, Eisman touched on the incredible impact of technology on the world around us. Despite the radical changes in technology and communication methods, she said, “we still need to communicate clearly and credibly with each other.” Unfortunately, not all online media truly meets this goal, but the goal is there, and people like Eisman, working tirelessly to train writers and adapt them to this new technology, are helping writers of online material fulfill its true potential.
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